Jìngtǔ jí xìn lù 淨土極信錄
Record of Ultimate Pure Land Faith by 戒香 (Liángēn dàshī Jièxiāng, 述)
About the work
A single-juǎn Pure Land devotional treatise composed (shù 述) by the late-Qīng monk 戒香 Jièxiāng 戒香, identified in the prefatory material by the sobriquet Liángēn dàshī 蓮根大師 (“Master Lotus-Root”). The title jí xìn 極信 (“ultimate faith”) foregrounds the xìn component of the standard Pure Land xìnyuànxíng 信願行 (faith-vow-practice) triad: the work is an extended exhortation to the deepening of Pure Land faith through close engagement with the Ēmítuó jīng 阿彌陀經.
Abstract
The Jìng-tǔ jí xìn lù xù 敘 (preface) is by Jìng-tài 境泰, hào Ruò-yú shān-rén 若愚山人, of Shùn-jiāng 舜江, dated Tóng-zhì rén-shēn xià liù-yuè 同治壬申夏六月 (= summer 1872), composed at the Guān-fó-lóu 觀佛樓 (Buddha-Contemplation Tower) of the Lóng-yán 龍巖 abbot’s quarters. Jìng-tài’s preface frames the work as an exhaustive cǎi-chū 剖出 (line-by-line drawing-out) of the Ē-mí-tuó jīng — Jiè-xiāng having taken the entire short scripture and drawn from each successive passage exhortations to the xìn-yuàn-xíng triad, supplemented by fǎng 頌 (eulogistic verses) and pastoral exhortations. Jìng-tài describes the practice as “sān-dǐng jù-zú, sān-xué quán-xiū 三鼎具足，三學全修” — the threefold tripod (faith / vow / practice) wholly present, the three trainings (precept / samādhi / prajñā) fully cultivated.
The doctrinal stance is the orthodox late-imperial Pure Land position: the practitioner’s task is the cultivation of the xīnyuē jìshě zhī zhì 心約取捨之志 (the will fixed in the acceptance of the Western Pure Land and the rejection of the Sahā-world); every line must “issue from the xīnyàn mind” (從忻厭之心流出). The work thus belongs alongside the late-Qīng pastoral Pure Land literature of 古崑 Gǔkūn and the post-彭際清 Péng Jìqīng literati Pure Land tradition.
Preserved in the Xùzàngjīng 卍續藏 as X1194. The dating bracket adopted (1860–1875) covers the Tóng-zhì-era horizon of composition.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.